Experts and lawmakers at a special session of the ECOWAS Parliament in Accra have warned that climate change is placing mounting pressure on livelihoods, infrastructure and regional stability across West Africa, according to a report by Guardian Nigeria. The Second Extraordinary Session, held under the theme of climate change as a driver of environmental degradation, displacement and rising insecurity in the ECOWAS region, identified rising temperatures, extreme weather, drought, unpredictable rainfall, flooding, rising sea levels and land degradation as the clearest signs of the crisis already reshaping the region.
Speakers told the session that shrinking water resources and degraded farmland are increasingly fueling competition for land, intensifying farmer-herder conflicts, driving displacement and deepening poverty across multiple ECOWAS member states. Some parliamentarians went further, describing the convergence of climate stress and weak adaptation capacity as a security time bomb for the region rather than a slow-moving environmental concern that can be addressed later.
The Parliament ultimately adopted resolutions urging ECOWAS heads of state to consider establishing a dedicated regional fund for climate resilience and human security, a step lawmakers argued is needed to move the bloc from issuing warnings to funding concrete adaptation projects on the ground.